Every village has its own way of protecting the forests, but each one is a success story

While the state government is keen to introduce JFM, villagers say there is no need for that since they have been carrying out all protection measures on their own for decades now

I assure you that people s rights will be protected

They prefer to be called the forest castes . They are the 2,000,000 odd villagers living in some 10,000 villages across Orissa. After Independence, timber smugglers and an apathetic government robbed them of the forests they had lived in for decades.

1920s: The British introduced railway lines in Orissa. Commercial exploitation of forests began in a big way. 1930s: In Dhenkanal, people revolted against the king for rights over the forests

The Orissa Jungle Manch, the state-level forum set up by the villagers to fight for ownership rights over the forests they have protected over the years, has drawn up a charter of six demands. These

The Dal lake is shrinking. It s waters are weed ridden. Untreated waste finds its way into the water. People continue to build land on the lake area. An ambitious project to save the lake was launched in 1997, but hardly any headway has been made

Women living in a non descript village in Gujarat revive a defunct dairy, earlier run by men. Today, not only do they churn out 100 per cent profits, they also keep the dairy owners happy

Call them the lakers . Some 10,000 of them. Parts of the Dal land and water belong to them. And when they feel the need to make a floating garden or land on the lake, they simply do it. Especially since the militancy problem in the Valley began, there

When K A Rahman succumbed to cancer on January 18, the river Chaliyar was orphaned and north Kerala villages lost its valiant